


On a Silent Night

by openhearts



Category: House M.D.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-15
Updated: 2008-12-15
Packaged: 2018-10-09 07:43:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10407225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openhearts/pseuds/openhearts
Summary: Spoilers through Season 5.  Thank you to my beta (livejournal user) enots.  For (livejournal user tsukihysteria)





	1. Chapter 1

"Nice balls, Cameron."

 

"Well, I try," she smiled, adjusted the gold orb she was hanging on the huge Christmas tree in the lobby of the hospital. "I heard you've got a pedes case," she said, turning back to the tree to hang the purple ornament in her other hand.

 

"Yep.  Little Mikey's pediatrician referred him to a urologist who referred him to me since there's nothing urologically wrong with him," House said, lowering himself into a nearby chair.  He stretched his bad leg out with a mild wince.

 

Cameron frowned at the ornament and took it back off the branch. “Why not refer back to the pediatrician?” 

 

"Because the pediatrician promptly died a day after giving the referral."  He fiddled with his cane then squinted at her. She was still engrossed in ornament placement.

 

"Hm.  Well then now you've got two cases, don't you?  Sick kid and a dead pediatrician."

 

Finally satisfied with the ornament, she turned again and smiled at him.  It was a mild, friendly expression.  She raised her eyebrows and sauntered away.  

 

"'Night House," she called over her shoulder.

 

_

 

 

He stood rooted to the floor of his office where he’d stopped short when he saw it. There were jingle bells affixed to his cane with several strands of red and green ribbon. He grimaced at them while he flipped the lid of a pill vial off with one thumb, trying to figure out how he could remove the offending merriness without actually touching it. He popped three pills into his mouth and swallowed harshly.

 

"Like it?  Kind of a Grinch-warning system for the kids in pedes.  This way the when you're on the way to steal Christmas they'll at least hear you coming."

 

"I thought you went home," he said accusingly, glaring at Cameron over his shoulder.  She leaned halfway through the doorway of his office, holding the door open with one hand, grinning.  

 

"I didn't say I was going home, I just said goodnight."

 

"You didn't say you were going to break into my office and vandalize my cane either."

 

She shrugged but still grinned, letting the door fall shut behind her.

 

"The door was unlocked.  What's with the crutch anyway?  Is your shoulder hurting again?"

 

"I thought I'd go for that Tiny Tim thing, since it's the holidays and all."  He nodded at his cane, which leaned against the edge of his desk.  "The tip wore through on that one, nearly killed myself on the tile out there.  Guess that's what I get for shopping at Cane Mart."  

 

He didn’t mention the truth: that the cane had been something of a family heirloom, a rescued artifact of his great grandfather’s necessitated after a war-wound. It had knocked around House’s various apartments since his great-grandfather had died. The irony of already owning it once he needed to use a cane had never escaped him, but he’d stalwartly pushed the thought out of his mind and the cane to the back of his closet. He also chose not to think about the fact that he only started using it after his father’s death. Those were details no one needed to know about.

 

When he looked back Cameron was next to him, eyeing the cane as well. She "mmed" quietly in reply through pursed lips.  It was a tired sound full of the silence that always seemed to tether them.  She rested against his desk in front of him, and reached one hand up to rub the back of her neck. 

 

"Long day treating the sniffles and sledding accidents, Dr. Cameron?"

 

Her smile turned rueful.  "Yes, Dr. Grinch, it has been.  Y'know I never figured you to be that much of an elitist.  I may not be solving difficult cases everyday, but that doesn't mean my job isn't tiring."

 

"Touchy touchy.  And tiring does not mean difficult.  I'm sure lots of dock workers and garbage collectors are tired at the end of the day but that doesn't make them geniuses.  What's really the matter, Chase being selfish in bed again?"

 

The smile changed a third time, lessened.  It flashed with sadness, and then brightened artificially.  "I wouldn't know.  He's in Melbourne."

 

House's brow furrowed.  "What for?  Both his parents are dead."

 

"He has some cousins he's getting back in touch with."  She pressed both palms against the edge of his desk and straightened.  

 

"For how long?"  He pivoted in place to watch her move across the room away from him.

 

"How long what?"  She turned back to him.  Her frame was too small to hold as much heaviness as it suddenly seemed to.  

 

"How long is he in Melbourne?"

 

A beat.

 

"For the holidays."

 

If that were all, she would have said goodnight again, turned and walked away into warmly lit hospital halls, probably to build a nativity scene on the hood of his car.

 

"And by holidays, you mean for the foreseeable future."

 

She shrugged.  Stared at the floor, rubbed at it with the toe of her shoe.  

 

“I thought you guys were-“

 

“Yeah. I thought so too,” she cut in. 

 

She looked back at him, eyes cold with reticence and denial.  She turned to leave again.

 

"How about a nightcap?"

 

The question startled her into turning back again. She didn’t say anything for a moment. He shrugged.

 

"You're alone-" he started.

 

"I'm not alone, I'm-" she tried to interject, but he kept right on talking over her.

 

"I'm alone, and Wilson's in Schenectady."

 

"Schenectady?"

 

House shrugged.  Where else do Jews go to get away from all this baby Jesus hubbub?"

 

She chuckled in spite of herself.

 

"Right. Your place," he said briskly, shrugging on his beaten up wool pea coat and slinging his back pack over his shoulder.  He glanced at the cane once more.

 

"Where did you even find jingle bells at this time of night?"

 

Her smile unconsciously returned.

 

"I'm on the decorating committee."

 

They started for the door, which he held open for her, be-belled cane left where it had been, crutch awkwardly shoved up under his arm.

 

"A teaching hospital has a decorating committee?"

 

"What, do you want to destroy my standing on this one just like the budget committee?"

 

“Well I could argue that you’re misusing your position to torment and offend me.”

 

Cameron “pfft”ed at him. "Not everyone is morally opposed to festivity, House."

 

_

 

 

"I have coffee, cider, egg nog . . ."

 

"What's in egg nog again?"

 

"Um, eggs, milk, rum-"

 

"Yeah, I'll have an egg nog, hold the . . . well hold everything but the rum. My morals won’t allow for that much festivity in one glass."

 

_

 

 

"But why is the rum gone?"

 

The lights were off in Cameron’s living room, but the glow of her Christmas tree produced a velvety mix of light and shadows that smoothed over their skin.

 

"Because we drank it all," she sighed.  The clock on her VCR read 2:02 a.m.

 

She stood up and wandered across her living room to her Christmas tree.  The tree was decorated with white lights, gold tinsel, and a sparse selection of homemade and old-looking ornaments.  

 

Cameron and the angel at the top shared a beatific smile for a moment, and then Cameron swayed to her knees and lay down on her back, head under the branches, hands loosely clasped over her stomach. As she stared up through the glittering kaleidoscope of pine needles and dashes of light, she heard the small rattle of a pill bottle from the sofa.

 

House remained slouched there, inhaling and exuding the quiet of Cameron’s living room, of the snow-filled night beyond her windows. He slipped the pill bottle back in his pocket and swallowed one pill, retaining the other to flip deftly end over end with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

 

“I did this every year when I was a little girl,” she said softly from under the tree. House maneuvered himself onto his good knee on the seat of the sofa, leaning his elbows on the back. He looked down at her, at her bare feet crossed at the ankles, the tension tugging at her joints even while she laid there with the rum still heavy on her frame.

 

He didn’t say anything for a moment. He opened his mouth to reply before he’d really formulated it in his mind, but she cut him off, sitting up gingerly.

 

“I don’t think he’s coming back.” 

 

It was a quiet declaration, a sort of resigned statement mostly for her own benefit. Her hands lay limp on the floor next to her hips, her legs still stretched out in front of her. 

 

“To the country or to you?”

 

She leaned back on her palms and stretched her legs even straighter, pointing her polished toes. The brief upturn of things with Chase had been quickly derailed when The Drawer turned out not to be the domestic cure-all it appeared to be.

 

“Doesn’t really matter which, if it’s not both.”

 

He bobbed his head back and forth in agreement with her logic. He bypassed the maturing she’d done in the last few years more often than he realized.

 

“Do you want him to?”

 

She shrugged.

 

“Interesting.”

 

Cameron glared at him. “Thank you. I’m glad the end of our relationship amuses you.” 

 

House shrugged.

 

“Crappy for you, interesting for me.”

 

He scraped the back of his thumb over his lower lip. Cameron watched the action, stared almost unblinkingly at his fingernail dragging against soft pink skin. Rum made her anger at him twist and fade into a mild fuzzy ache in her skull. After five years she’d learned to pick her battles. After five years she was tired.

 

She stood, shaky and buzzing with awareness, and walked over to stand just in front of him. He still leaned on the back of the sofa with his shoulders hunched and craned his neck to look up at her. Apprehension played across his watchful features. 

 

For a second he was transported back two years in time, standing in his office, trying to glare down at her as she approached him and didn’t stop until their bodies nearly collided. 

 

Now, he didn’t roll his eyes, just kept them trained on her face with its hazy, unreadable expression.

 

“See now the dynamic is all wrong, because you’re the tortured one looking for a distraction from your inner turmoil, where as I-“

 

She shook her head, a little smile played on her lips as she licked them. 

 

“Shh.” 

 

The word breathed from her lips onto his as she leaned down instead of up this time to kiss him.

 

There was more familiarity in it than either of them anticipated, like they were picking up where they left off as matter-of-factly as snow has melted into rain again every spring. The last two years and the intervening kisses they’d pressed to others’ mouths evaporated away with the heat of their breaths.

 

Millions of papery snowflakes floated silently outside, amplifying the glow of every streetlight, Christmas light, porch light, and lamp lit in a window. The sky held a dusky orange color and the moon was a pale thumbprint. In that indelible moment Cameron briefly realized that on the other side of the globe, the sky might be that color too. But the thought didn’t linger, giving way to the soft creak of the sofa beneath House’s knees, and the sound of their deeply drawn breaths.  

 

Without the pity and the syringe, with the soft lighting and the thick wall of snow obscuring the view of the night outside her window, House’s sarcasm failed him. His hands instinctively found her waist as he leaned up into her, long hands reaching to her back, pulling her forward and pressing her hips into the back of the sofa. 

 

Her fingers traced over his scalp, the short hairs – more of them glinting silver now than before – bristled against the soft skin of her fingertips, palms, and wrists. The feeling tingled up her arms, around her shoulders, over her breasts, and down to her thighs. The tingling increased as his hands began to follow. 

 

House pulled away and stood from the couch eventually. His knees protested the position, and his mind protested that creaky middle-aged knees were not sexy. He walked a measured few limping steps around the piece of furniture that had been keeping them somewhat safe from each other. They stood, silent, facing each other for a tiny moment before she reached for him again and he reached for her arms. He rubbed his hands over her skin and held her gently in place. If it weren’t House doing it Cameron would have construed it as a comforting gesture.

 

“Maybe this-” he started, but she cut him off. 

 

"Come on House," she grinned wickedly, leaning into him and dragging her palm up his thigh, "your heart may be two sizes too small, but I'm sure your everything else is just the right size."

 

The rum, the night, the stupid damning season, the already-begun trails of kisses, all of it made him not hesitate at Cameron’s hands snaking up and pulling insistently at the back of his neck. She reached up on tip toes, tugged him to her lips again, same as two years ago, same as two minutes ago. 

 

This time they got past the syringe part to the part where she arched her back, body pressing into his as he half-laid her across the back of the sofa and licked wolfishly over her collarbone. 

 

Moments, minutes, a fraction of an hour later, and her bedroom was filled with similar sounds as her living room had been – a gently creaking bed and lungs filling with shared breath. Outside the snow stopped but the night was still silent.

 

_

 

 

Cameron leaned against the wall next to her front door. She looked up at him as he stood over her, leaning on the uncharacteristic crutch which gleamed softly in early morning light streaming through her windows. The clear white light of sun bouncing off the snow outside made everything feel cold and new. 

 

His words from hours ago flashed briefly through her mind – “you’re alone, I’m alone” . . .   Where and why they had found the self-control, self-denial, to stubbornly refuse themselves this for so long was beyond her. 

 

House leaned down; one hand braced against the wall next to her head, and kissed her. Of his own volition, without much hesitation. The door clicked softly shut behind him. Cameron pressed a few fingers to her lips, letting her eyes slide closed against the bright white morning.

 

_  


[Part Two](http://0penhearts.livejournal.com/3462.html)

  
 


	2. Chapter 2

“Any progress?”

“Well, after five years-“

“I mean on the case, House,” Cameron interjected, glancing at Kutner, who seemed absorbed in his iPod and breakfast at the conference table anyway.

He leaned across his desk conspiratorially, but when he continued his voice was just slightly louder than before.

“After five years I think twice in one night is pretty good.” He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, leering at her. Kutner looked up, but only seemed to notice their presence in the next room, and not anything that was said. He went back to his oatmeal.

Cameron sighed, smile pushing stubbornly at the corners of her mouth. She fell into a chair across from House and regarded his feet crossed at the ankle and propped up on his desk. She tugged the end of one of his shoelaces free from its knot and flipped the loose end towards him. 

House gave her a look. “If I trip over that and break my leg I’m blaming you.”

She smiled sweetly. “Aren’t you due for a hip replacement soon anyway? Hey where’s the rest of your team?” She motioned to Kutner with her eyes.

“Taub and Thirteen are searching little Mikey’s house for toxins, Foreman’s taking time off to visit the plantation, and Kutner just came off the night shift making sure the kid didn’t croak. Oh, and you’re freaking out about having sex with your boss last night.”

Cameron choked on a laugh. “I’m not on your team anymore, so you’re definitely not my boss. Any luck on that urological problem the dead pediatrician found?”

“Nothing yet, just weight loss and generalized pain, but he’s clear for cancer. Oh, and the pediatrician’s still dead. Can’t get lucky all the time.”

He actually winked at her. It was barely more than a twitch, but she knew she saw it.

She got up from the chair she’d sat in many times before and tossed the oversized tennis ball from his desk at him playfully. He caught it easily and began tossing it into the air and catching it rhythmically. Cameron glanced at Kutner and chuckled. He had finished his oatmeal and was bopping in his chair, drumming the glass tabletop with his index fingers.

“Wanna do it again?”

“Sleep together, or wait five years?” She deflected over her shoulder as she headed to the door.

“The former.”

Cameron shrugged in agreement and smiled.

“Still have one question you can help with,” House continued as Cameron moved to leave. Toss. Catch. Toss. Catch.

Cameron stood still, one had on the door handle, eyebrows raised.

“I may not technically be your boss anymore, but . . . who’s your daddy? Oh, and before you answer, I want you to keep in mind . . . twice.”

Her eyes practically glowed with mischief. “Are you sure you want to be labeling yourself ‘daddy’ in this relationship?”

Kutner coughed from the open doorway to House’s office, headphones dangling down the front of his t-shirt. He looked back and forth between them once.

“Uh, Taub and Thirteen are on their way back can I, uh, head home?” He gestured awkwardly toward the door with his hands in his lab coat pockets.

Cameron crumpled against the blinds, one hand still on the door knob, the other cradling her red, grimacing face. 

House coughed gruffly and motioned Kutner away with a nod. Kutner took the long way out, back through the conference room.

When House turned back Cameron was walking swiftly down the hallway, lab coat fluttering behind her as the glass door with his name on it swung slowly shut. Toss. Catch. Toss. Catch.

_

 

House didn’t track Cameron down before he left the hospital that night grumpy and with a still-unsolved case. A multi-car pile-up kept the ER staff busy long into the night and Cameron didn’t leave until midnight. The weather had turned from the filmy snow-filled air of the previous night to a cold so severe she swore she felt her bone marrow hardening into slush. 

When she reached her apartment, she immediately plugged in her Christmas tree lights and sat for a moment on the floor next to the tree, still in her scrubs and coat, her legs tucked up under her on the hardwood floor. She looked appreciatively up at the tree, then closed her eyes for a moment and sighed, letting the soft ivory glow of the lights warm her face. 

She glanced to her side at the sofa and her cheeks warmed still more as she replayed the night before in her mind. She followed their path to the bedroom, where she shed her coat and shoes and sat on the end of her bed in her scrubs. As she looked around the room she heard and tasted the night before – the quiet throaty groans and one-word sentences; the chemical twinge of Vicodin on his tongue as it slid against hers.

She glanced at the clock on her bedside table and cringed in surprise at the framed picture of her and Chase sitting unassumingly next to it. How had she not noticed it last night? Chase had been right there the whole night, staring happily out at the room from the frame while House had touched and tasted and filled her. Twice. A little thrill of vindictive glee flashed through her. She’d always loved annoying Chase when he was trying to be serious.

She crawled across the bed and picked up the small frame, watching the reflection from the lamp obscure the image as it glinted on the glass. Just a flick of the wrist and Chase was blotted neatly and completely out of the picture, leaving only her own face smiling back at her. A twitch of a muscle, and the last two years slid easily into a bright oblivion.

“His” drawer was overturned into a box that she put in the coat closet. The pictures of the two of them, of which there were few, she put in a box on a bookshelf. Neat, orderly, done, away.

It had taken two years for her to rearrange the pieces of her life into a different picture – move this figure here next to this one, replace this outfit and hair color, flip this expression, tweak this job description – but all the elements were still the same as before. Same men, same town, same hospital, same apartment. It had felt, lately, that it might be coming time to rearrange the picture again. Now Chase had rearranged himself onto a plane, and House had rearranged her sheets to accommodate his scent, even a day later. It all felt comfortingly inevitable.

Cameron set her alarm clock and crawled in between the cold sheets. She shivered and curled her knees up to her chest to avoid the chill of an empty bed.

_

 

“I thought she was with Chase.”

“I heard he dumped her.”

“I heard we still have a case.”

Three heads popped up from their conspiratorial circle around the conference table.

“Why don’t we gossip about the patient for a while?” House hooked his cane on the top of the white board, uncapped the marker, and stood with his back to them, waiting for a good answer to why a seven-year-old boy would lose weight, have generalized pain, and warrant a referral to a urologist from his pediatrician when he appeared to have no urological symptoms.

Taub spoke up with an idea first, and the differential continued for the third day in a row. Symptoms added, treatments and possible diagnoses added and crossed off, unsuccessful.

When a new batch of ideas was decided on, House sent his team off on their errands and retired to his office. He’d just started to shuffle through his iPod in search of something to fit his mood when Kutner coughed from the doorway again.

“Uh-“

“What?” House tugged a headphone from one ear and glared at Kutner, who shifted for a moment, then jammed his hands in his lab coat pockets.

“I just wanted to tell you, I didn’t say anything about Dr. Cam – about yesterday.”

“What do you want, a gold star for acting like an adult?”

“No, I just thought you should know that I’m being discreet,” Kutner said defensively.

“Discreet. Right. Go get me that biopsy.” House’s tone was snide and disdainful.

“Y’know, you’d think you would be in a better mood right now. I mean look at her.”

House eyed Kutner darkly.

“Mine,” he said, eyes wide with sarcasm. “Out.”

Kutner scoffed and left. House watched him in the hallway as he went off to get the biopsy and put his headphones back in his ears. He rolled the word around his brain for hours, music vibrating in his ears reduced to a dull background hum.

_

 

“What is it with you and charting? It’s like you enjoy it or something.”

Cameron glanced up from her desk piled high with charts and files. 

“Half of these are yours. Who did you think was keeping up with it while Foreman’s gone?” She looked back down as she answered, hair falling back over her face before she adjusted it and her reading glasses.

“Huh. Guess that whole growing a backbone thing didn’t work out so well for you, did it?”

She gave him a half-hearted glare and dropped her pen, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms.

“I’m being compensated for it, don’t worry. But you still owe me.”

“No, I think you mean Cuddy owes you. She’s the one who cares about all this record keeping mumbo jumbo,” House said as he sat in one of the chairs across from Cameron’s desk. He twirled his cane easily between his fingers, a genial smile lighting his eyes.

“Are you looking for another reason to piss her off?” The question was quiet and asked as Cameron leaned forward again and pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. House let his cane fall still and leveled his gaze at her steadily and held it. Cameron glanced up rolled her eyes.

“What, you really think it wasn’t ever going to come up?” She shook her head and continued, the slightest smile touching her eyes. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and go get me some lunch?”

“Why don’t you take a break?”

“Because if I take a break now I’ll drag for the rest of the afternoon and by the time I’m done it’ll be too late to enjoy my evening.”

“Ever hear of enjoy now, chart later?”

“Ever hear of a work ethic?”

House sighed dramatically.

“Work ethic is for the young and aspiring. One day you’ll learn, grasshopper.” He widened his eyes at her as he got up from his chair and loped through her office door.

Cameron watched him go before she sighed and went back to charting.

_

 

“If you feed them, they will come.”

House opened his door wider to let Cameron past him.

“Smells good, did you order in?” Cameron asked as she shrugged off her coat.

House gave her a look.

“What? I don’t know about your cooking skills,” Cameron said as she unzipped her ankle boots and set them down neatly by his front door. She stood up straight, significantly shorter in her bare feet, and put her hands on her hips. “Besides, doesn’t cooking qualify as work?” 

“Technically? Yes, but it’s also going to get me into your pants, so . . . kinda worth it. Finish my charting today?”

“Yeah, now I just have to catch up on mine.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday. You’re kind of an administrator, don’t’ you people get weekends off?”

“Not when I’m taking care of your work and mine.”

House tugged her closer by her elbow and leaned down to kiss the side of her neck. He waited to feel her just begin to twist and lean into him before limping off to the kitchen. The heat from his breath warmed her skin and she brought her cold hands up to rest there. She dug her fingertips into the back of her neck; sore from the day spent leaned over her desk. 

Cameron looked around his living room, quiet save for House’s movements in the kitchen. Aside from whatever he was cooking, it smelled like polished wood, faintly of leather, and the tinny, dust-filled air secreted by the fans from electronics. She could run her hands over his books and souvenirs and artifacts for days and not see the end of them – his collections of objects, instruments and tools were disparate and expensive as only men’s are.

It was what Chase’s consciously modern-eclectic furniture aspired to be; more grown up and complex than her husband’s affinity for puffy plaid upholstery. 

Cameron blinked the thoughts away and headed for the kitchen. Without looking up, House wordlessly held out a glass of wine with one hand while he stirred with the other. She wondered if he could feel the smile on her mouth as she took the glass and leaned against the butcher block. She watched House cook dinner for her, took in his worn moccasin slippers and jeans and smiled to herself.

House turned down the burner and put a lid on the pan. He turned and limped a step over to lean against the counter across from her. He rubbed a palm over his chin.

“You could do your charting here, y’know. Tomorrow.”

Cameron eyed him over the rim of her glass. House shrugged and looked at her casually crossed ankles.

“What?” he asked defensively, “you get to do your precious work that you love so much and I get to look at you. Everybody wins.”

Cameron smiled and set down her glass, now empty. She took the two steps that separated them and looked up at him for a moment before leaning her head against his chest and slipping her arms around his waist. Cameron’s hands clasped against House’s back and his wedged against the counter on either side of his hips. He leaned his head down slightly; let his breath brush her hair.

They stood like that for a moment before he jolted suddenly and grasped her upper arms to push her away. 

“Auto-immune!”

“What?”

“It’s an auto-immune disease!” He shook her a little to emphasize his point.

Cameron shook her head and frowned, pulling away from him and leaning against the butcher block again.

“Your not-urological kid?”

“It’s the only thing that fits. It’s not cancer, all the biopsies were negative. It has to be auto-immune. Probably Guillain-Barre.”

Cameron squinted at House, who was now pacing back and forth in front of the stove. “How did you come to that conclusion now?”

He rolled his eyes at her, but his expression was alive and intensely satisfied. “I had an immunologist stuck to me, or did you not notice? Well, you used to be one before you became a specialist in the field of charting.” House chided her as he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed.

“Auto-immune doesn’t explain the urological-” Cameron started to answer, but House held up a finger. He moved to stand in front of her and placed the finger against her lips as he glared at her. 

She quieted, but he stayed where he was, standing a breath away while the phone rang in his ear. His expression softened and she faintly heard the ringing on the line. He let his hand slip around to hold her cheek and run his thumb over her skin. His eyes wandered her face and his thumb rubbed lightly over the corner of her mouth. Cameron closed her eyes and leaned ever so slightly into the touch and he felt the muscles in her cheek twitch into a lazy smile.

The hello on the other end of the line sounded small and faraway.

“It’s auto-immune. Call up the other kiddies and start testing him for all of them.”

Cameron stood straighter and ran her hands over his sides before letting them slip under his button-down and t-shirt to travel over his skin. He closed his eyes and his hand slipped down to rest in the curve where her neck sloped into shoulder.

“Yes, Kutner, test him for every auto-immune that fits.”

Cameron leaned her forehead against his chest again and smiled into his shirt when he jumped at her fingers brushing over his ribs.

“That’s why you’re going to call Taub and Thirteen and you’re all going to have a slumber party like the bunch of prepubescent girls you are while you wait for the results.”

Cameron snickered and leaned up to nuzzle over his neck, letting the stubble prick at her lips. She paused at the scar from when he’d been shot when he clicked his phone shut and dropped it back into his pocket.

“Kutner says hi.”

“Hi Kutner,” Cameron whispered against his throat as she traced the scar with a fingertip.

“Well you don’t have to say it all sexy just for him.”

Cameron smirked. “Hi Greg,” she whispered throatily, lips brushing at his skin.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” he said quietly, extracting himself from her and turning back to the stove.

She snaked her hands around his waist, unable to resist touching him now that she was allowed. She felt the heat from the stove flare up near her hands as he took the lid off the pan to stir it again.

House pushed at her hands and leaned back so she’d step away.

“You’re going to get burned.”

Cameron pulled herself up onto the island and drained the last drops from her wine glass.

“Not a big concern of mine, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

_

 

House slumped on his couch, long legs propped comfortably on the coffee table. One hand held the remote as he idly flipped channels, the other rested on Cameron’s crossed ankles in his lap. His fingers twitched over the fuzzy brown socks she wore Cameron sat up, hair pulled back, reading glasses perched on her nose as she worked through the pile of charts sitting on the floor next to her. Her pen was alternately gripped between her teeth or tucked behind one ear as she flipped pages back and forth. A line of concentration pressed between her eyes and she murmured under her breath at times as she notated.

The sky outside was bright blue and cloudless, belying the weather reports of a blizzard to start later that afternoon. Cameron’s boots and House’s sneakers sat near his door. Their trip to Cameron’s apartment for a change of clothes and to the hospital to pick up the charts she needed to finish had brought in chunks of snow that were already warming into puddles.

House watched her for a moment, bored of TV, and reached over, hand traveling slowly through midair, to pull the pen from between her teeth. She barely looked up from the chart she was squinting at, just gave a guttural grunt in his direction. House clicked the pen in and out rapidly for a moment before stopping to tap out a rhythm on the arm of the couch. Cameron’s eyes flicked up from her work and she “ahem”ed at him.

He looked back with wide eyes and stopped, frozen for a moment before she looked back down. He inspected the barrel of the pen, the faint teeth marks evidence of her concentration. He thought about Cameron’s teeth as he tapped the tip of the pen against his own; how they glinted when she smiled in the dark.

“Quit it,” Cameron sighed under her breath at the tapping, but she kept her eyes on her work. House glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes. He wedged back the clip on the end of the pen and clipped it to the flap of denim that covered the zipper on his jeans. This went unnoticed by Cameron until she held her hand out a moment later to ask for her pen back. House sat, one hand wedged under his chin, remote held again in his other. 

He kept his eyes on the TV and waited for her to look up. When she did he was carefully regarding the television with an all but blank expression.

“Pen please?”

He tried to hold in his smile.

“House. I need my pen.”

“Oh I have your pen. You’ll just have to come get it.” He wiggled his hips slightly and batted his eyes at her.

_

 

“Okay, you can go back to charting now, kiddo.”

Cameron smoothed her hair back into its ponytail. 

“Isn’t it vaguely inappropriate to call me kiddo considering what I just did to get my pen back?”

“I bow to no such social norms.”

Cameron raised her eyebrows at him before turning her back to him and leaning against his side, her feet stretched out again in the opposite direction from before. House’s hand reached down from resting on the back of the couch to tug her glasses down her nose. Cameron sighed and elbowed him in the ribs.

“You’re not getting any again until these charts are done.”

House’s finger slid the frames back up her nose. His hand slipped under the cowl neck of her sweater, index and middle fingertips walking over her skin. Cameron started to protest, but his hand stilled and rested wrapped around her shoulder, one finger tucked underneath her bra strap. 

A warm little thrill ran through her first, then a flash of cold sickness.

Chase slithered through her mind with the long slow gut-punch of his being the one to leave her. She sighed in spite of herself. A part of her felt adulterous for it all. Didn’t Chase deserve this, after running along after her for nearly two years? Didn’t her husband deserve this, instead of having been buried next to his grandparents? 

Cameron let her hands still and clasp over the chart of a woman who’d died at forty-three. She’d left no children, no husband behind. No one grieving noisily in the ER, or to call immediately and inform in gentle, somber tones. There was something almost comforting about that in Cameron’s mind. Maybe there was someone who would miss this woman, but no one had to identify her body, had to deal with the increasing fact of a death lying in bed next to them, of a dead relationship walking away carrying luggage.

Cameron dropped her chin to House’s arm resting across her collarbone. Everything and nothing felt right about it. The pulse in his wrist beat against a bone in her shoulder. She leaned her head back against his shoulder and wondered absently if she would leave a death in her wake this time too.

_


	3. Chapter 3

Cameron collapsed into a chair at the desk in the ER. A gurney went sailing by, narrowly missing the edge of the desk, surrounded by paramedics, a doctor and two nurses. Their yelling the patient’s status to each other, though painful, was necessary to be heard over the shrieking infant in one curtain area, and the loudly arguing Asian family in the other. Monitors beeped, scrubs swished against legs, and drawers on supply carts were opened and closed too quickly. The wind whizzed and howled and blasted snow against the automatic sliding doors of the ambulance entrance. Sirens wailed sadly and insistently, growing louder every time the doors opened.

House was there, suddenly and without reason, walking up casually with the aid of an un-belled cane. He leaned an elbow against the counter glumly. Cameron looked up at him miserably and waved a hand. 

“Welcome to my world. Why does the world go to crap around the holidays and then come here?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but thought himself above shouting to be heard over the din of the commoners. He took her stethoscope from around her shoulders and tucked the ear pieces into her ears. He leaned closer and held the mouth piece near his lips.

“Seriously. I’ll fire Thirteen.”

Cameron smiled and shook her head.

“I’ll give you a raise.”

Shake of the head.

“I’ll do naughty things to you every night for a week without reciprocity.”

Eyebrow raise. Thought. Brief closing of eyes. Pained shake of the head.

“Seriously?”

Shrug. Smile.

“Love is all I have to give, Cameron. Sweet oral love. And you’re rejecting it.”

Pouted lip, big sad eyes and batted eyelashes hiding a grin.

The Asian family’s argument grew louder then, and House glared over his shoulder at them. When he leaned back the earpieces jerked from Cameron’s ears. She yelped, hands pressed to her ears to rub at the cartilage. House looked back and rolled his eyes.

“See, this is what you get for working in the ER. All sorts of occupational hazards.”

He looped the stethoscope back around her neck and let one fingertip trace the curve of her ear and flick lightly at her sensible stud earring. He opened his mouth to say something but paused, fingers still on her ear, head cocked to one side. His eyes squinted into the distance.

Cameron frowned and raised an eyebrow. 

A moment later he was limping briskly away quickly toward the elevators.

“Oh, okay. Bye honey,” Cameron sighed. She leaned over to grab another chart and braced herself to rejoin the din.

_

 

House paced in front of the white board, tossing and catching a red marker.

“When you get Chinese takeout, what do you order?”

They glared at him. 

“Seriously, what do you order?”

“What does this have to do with our case?” Thirteen asked wearily.

“We don’t even have a case anymore, the kid’s gonna be fine. It was Guillain-Barre,” Taub answered without looking up from his newspaper.

“Egg foo young and chicken fried rice,” Kutner answered.

House sighed dramatically and caught the marker with a flourish. He paused in his pacing.

“Wrong. Field trip. We’re going to the ER. Everybody hold hands.”

House limped off, team straggling after.

“Isn’t the ER suspiciously close to the clinic?” Taub asked hopefully as he folded his newspaper.

“Trying to prove a point here!” House called, somehow far ahead of them and waiting at the elevator.

Kutner reached for Thirteen’s hand and she slapped him away.

_

 

“Where are they?!” House asked to no one, searching the less-busy ER. “Where’s Dr. Cameron?” He demanded of a nearby nurse. The woman pointed at an exam room. House barged in, and his three followers loitered around the door.

“Kinda busy here,” Cameron said as soon as the door opened. She squinted at the chart she was holding and glanced back and forth between it and the monitors hooked up to her patient.

“Where’s that dysfunctional Asian family that was in here before?”

“The what?” Cameron put the chart down and adjusted the drip of the patient’s IV.

“Short, black hair, en masse, loud. They were shouting in native tongues when I was down here earlier.”

“The food poisoning kid? He got discharged, they should be gone.”

“Dammit Cameron, why do you have to be efficient now, when it’s least convenient for me?”

“Oh, I’m sorry; please tell me what can I do for you today, Dr. House?” Cameron glared at him as she passed him and waived Kutner and Taub out of her way as she left the room. 

House charged after her. “Come back here woman, I need those Asians!”

Thirteen and Taub shared an eye-roll. Kutner just smiled to himself.

“I don’t have time for you to pretend I still answer to you, House, I’m still at least an hour behind and I’d like to leave before midnight tonight.”

House watched her nimbly flip through the pages of a chart, wisps of hair freeing themselves stubbornly from her ponytail. Her glasses perched delicately on her nose. She looked tired, but her pace was quick and determined.

“What do you order when you get Chinese?”

Cameron grimaced at the next chart she held. “Really not the time for dinner plans.”

“Don’t say egg foo young or chicken fried rice, he doesn’t like that,” Kutner said quickly. 

Taub took a chart from the rack at the desk and handed another to Thirteen. They quietly deflected.

Cameron sighed, and gave up. She glanced at her watch, rolled her eyes, then set down the chart and sat down at the desk. She crossed her legs, then her arms.

“Beef and broccoli,” she said.

“See, I knew there was a reason I liked you.” House held out a fist for her to bump knuckles. Cameron eyed the fist. Taub and Thirteen each looked up briefly from taking histories of their respective patients. Kutner slowly bumped House’s fist with his own.

“No, see, it doesn’t work that way, you only get to bump when you’ve been a part of the process. Egg foo young and chicken fried rice does nothing for me, because it sounds the same with or without an accent. Beef and ‘broccori,’ on the other hand, does not. It-“

“Yes it does, fried rice totally sounds different with an accent.”

House glared. Cameron chuckled quietly and bobbed one foot up and down in midair.

“Whatever!” House burst out. “You’re ruining my big reveal, more so than Cameron’s work ethic. Little Mikey’s pediatrician was Chinese, with a thick accent. The last hour you three were dicking around the conference room I was making a lot of very awkward phone calls trying to find out Mikey’s dead pediatrician’s maiden name. Mom thought she was saying ‘urologist,’ but she was actually saying-“

“Neurologist?” Cameron finished triumphantly. “Pediatrician was right all along. The kid had neurological symptoms from the Guillain-Barre, probably peripheral neuropathy, which a kid would only be able to describe as generalized pain. Weight loss is explained by the Guillain-Barre, and there were no urological symptoms.”

House waived a hand to Cameron, as if presenting her to an audience. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr. Alison Cameron, thunder-stealer and girl wonder.”

“Too bad Pediatrician died. She was the one with the right diagnosis. You two could have made an unstoppable team.” Cameron smiled and picked up her chart again. “I think you owe me dinner again now.” She winked at House before heading to an exam room.

Taub and Thirteen, having traded their charts for discharge orders, were picking up their next two cases. House was already limping off to the elevator, dialing the number for the Lucky Dragon to place an order for pickup. Kutner sat in the chair at the desk and spun himself around a few times.

“If you’re going to be down here, take a chart!” Cameron called from the exam room, where she stood in the doorway, propping the door open with a foot.

“Trying to lure me to the dark side?” He asked amiably.

“House IS the dark side,” Cameron smiled, with a shake of her head.

_

 

“Want anything for Christmas?”

“Are you saying you’d get me a present if I said yes?”

“If I did, you’d have to find some way to thank me, and . . . well, the rest of the harassment really writes itself.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. 

“House, the only thing you’ve ever given me is my HIV test results after you opened them and several headaches.”

“And like six orgasms so far. Don’t forget those.”

Cameron whapped him on the forehead with an open palm. “You’re a nerd.”

“Hey, you’re the one who keeps having sex with me. Positive reinforcement.”

She shrugged her bare shoulder under the blankets in deference. They went back to watching the shadows on the ceiling in bed together. One of their familiar silences stretched over them, melancholy and comfortable as a threadbare blanket.

___________________


End file.
